Here at 100Kin10, we are constantly learning from our nearly 300 leading partner organizations while maintaining a pulse across the field, via teachers, researchers, and other leaders dedicated to supporting excellent STEM teaching and learning for all students.

It’s a unique and privileged position to be in, at the intersection of so much wisdom. Recognizing that, we start each year by synthesizing all that information into our Trends Report: ten bite-sized insights that emerge from the data. The ten reflections will shape 100Kin10’s work in the year to come, and we hope they will have resonance for yours, too.

Teacher shortages are a growing problem across the country. From Atlanta to rural Colorado, schools and districts are struggling to attract and retain high-quality educators, especially in STEM, due in part to low pay, poor working environments, and a strong economy that holds the promise of more lucrative employment. As 100Kin10 predicted in our 2017 Trends Report, we’ve continued to see an increase in states using emergency credentials to fill teacher shortages. However, these stop-gap solutions are raising concerns about the sharp rise in the number of under-qualified teachers. There is a growing recognition that emergency credentials don’t address the underlying reasons for teacher shortages — and leave classrooms helmed by people unprepared for the job, especially in our highest-need communities.

We’ve been inspired to see many partners take the lead in providing a fresh perspective on math as an integral part of STEM learning. Partners like Illustrative Math and PhET Interactive Simulations are giving students the opportunity to engage with math through active learning and to apply mathematical concepts to solve complex problems. Arizona State University is putting active learning and inquiry-based pedagogies front and center when preparing candidates to teach math at all grade levels, and the Erikson Institute Early Math Collaborative is running innovative professional development for early-grade teachers so that kids experience math as a “creative, meaning-making endeavor” that nurtures a lifetime of problem-solving.

4 // EARLIER STEM TO ADVANCE EQUITY

In recent years, there’s been mounting evidence that early exposure to STEM education leads students to be more successful, not only in high school and college but more broadly throughout life. Early education in science and math, in particular, have been shown to predict socioeconomic status well into adulthood. In 2018, we saw more educators and experts responding with a wide range of initiatives that support early STEM, many with a focus on equity.

5 // STEM IS ENGINEERING THE FUTURE WORKFORCE, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

It’s no secret that STEM jobs are more likely to yield higher paychecks, both among college graduates and for those with a high school diploma. With the cost of college continuing to skyrocket, and uncertainty around the future of work increasing, STEM jobs are increasingly seen as the most sensible careers for students to pursue. As a result, PK–12 learning is becoming more intertwined with the practical side of STEM. We saw this at the national level in April when leaders from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors gathered in Washington D.C. for “STEM Solutions: Workforce of Tomorrow” to discuss strategies for building a stronger STEM workforce, and in July, when the Perkins Act was reauthorized, emphasizing the need to develop career and technical pathways that align with STEM. We’ve also seen partners take the lead on this front, like Boeing and 100Kin10 partner National Science Foundation partnering to support workforce development and diversity in STEM, and many others like Ignited, University of Arizona’s Teachers in Industry, and NAF running initiatives to support teachers and students to build stronger connections with STEM industry professionals and career pipelines.

There’s much to celebrate about the alliance between PK–12 STEM learning and the workforce, but it’s worth noting that the value of deep and authentic STEM learning does much more than just build the workforce pipeline. It nurtures opportunities for inquiry and curiosity; to collaborate, experiment, fail, and persevere; to better understand our bodies, nature, and the built environment; and to practice the kind of critical thinking and creative problem-solving that will be useful in all arenas of life.

That’s why we’ve been excited to see partners like California State University, the Bay Area Discovery Museum, and Carnegie Science Center using makerspaces and mobile engineering labs to provide hands-on experiences for young students, fostering a love for STEM learning long before they’re writing resumes. We’re also seeing early indications of STEM as a vector for revitalizing joy in the classroom. Read on for more on that topic.

Leaders from LinkedIn and the World Economic Forum agree: students need soft-skills and social-emotional competencies to be effective leaders and team members in the 21st century. Prominent education publications are also discussing this, focusing on the need for teachers to understand social-emotional learning and brain science to better support their students in developing social skills that complement academics. Funders like the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative are embracing the whole child approach to learning, and there is growing interest in STEM — with its natural connection to curiosity, experimentation, and teamwork — as an integrated, content-forward way to foster growth mindset, grit, perseverance, and the soft skills most essential to 21st-century life.

Our Teacher Forum members have pointed out that the myth that STEM is only about hard skills is slowly waning, and partners are already taking early steps in this direction. The Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin is partnering with Agile Mind to lead a Project Team that aims to support students in adopting a growth mindset by addressing teachers’ implicit biases about who can and cannot excel in STEM. Colorado Education Initiative has championed the Student-Centered Accountability Program (S-CAP), a joint effort by small, rural Colorado school districts that considers the whole child to develop an approach to accountability that incorporates a wide range of indicators of district and school quality, focuses on the needs and interests of local communities, and is supported by a network of peers. With more partners contributing and more national attention, we predict that in 2019 we’ll see STEM increasingly being used to strengthen metacognitive and social-emotional skills so that more students can flourish in all aspects of their lives.

8 // STEM LEADING THE WAY TOWARD STUDENT AGENCY AND PERSONAL RELEVANCE

Over the past decade, we’ve seen a growing trend toward personalized learning, pushed forward by ed tech companies’ digital tools and platforms. However, there has been criticism that these tech-based solutions not only fail to reach all students, but also limit teachers from connecting personally with students, especially those from underrepresented and low-income communities. Building on research about the importance of relevance and agency for student learning and motivation, 100Kin10 partners are helping to pioneer an approach called personally-relevant pedagogy that we predict is a harbinger of things to come.

9 // TEACHER ACTIVISM IS UP, INTEREST IN TEACHING IS DOWN, BUT CHANGE IS COMING

We have been inspired throughout 2018 to see our prediction from last year’s Trends Report of more teachers entering the political sphere become a reality. We saw a new wave of teacher activism across the country gain traction this spring, and thanks to the recent midterm elections, educators will account for 15 percent of state lawmakers in the coming year. And the public is paying attention. According to The Washington Post, there is broad support for the profession and in particular for increasing teachers’ salaries.

Too often, school leaders create a dichotomy: either students or teachers can flourish, but not both. The opposite is true. Research shows that the only sustainable path to student success is through schools where teachers and students thrive. Last year, our massively crowd-sourced research around the root causes of the STEM teacher shortage revealed that three of the highest-leverage areas for change are related to the work environment for teachers. 100Kin10 also heard this directly from educators in our Teacher Forum, who told us that they are in need of time to collaborate with peers, participate in professional development, and experiment with new approaches in the classroom. We know these are areas with tremendous potential for impact, not only within our network, but for the education field at large.